A direct heating immersed boundary-lattice Boltzmann method for thermal flows

Purpose - The purpose of the current paper is to develop a numerical methodology, based on the immersed boundary-lattice Boltzmann computational framework, for the Neumann and Dirichlet boundary conditions in problems involving natural and forced convection heat transfer. Design/methodology/approach - The direct forcing immersed boundary method is extended to study the heat transfer by incompressible flow within the thermal lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) computational framework. The direct forcing and heating immersed boundary-LBM introduces a heat source term to the thermal LBM to account for the heat transfer occurring at the immersed boundary. New numerical treatments for the Neumann type of boundary condition and for the calculation of the local Nusselt number are developed. The developed methodologies have been applied to flows around immersed bodies with natural and forced convection, including steady as well as unsteady flows. Findings - Numerical experiments involving immersed bodies in natural and forced convection have been performed in order to assess the validity of the direct heating lB-LBM. The flow cases studied also include steady and transient flow phenomena. Flow velocity field and isotherms have been used for qualitative comparisons with existing, published results. The surface averaged Nusselt number, Strouhal number, and lift coefficient (for the unsteady flow cases) have been used for quantitative comparison with published results. The results show that there are satisfactory agreements, qualitatively and quantitatively, between the results obtained by using the present method and those previously published. Originality/value - Limited application of immersed boundary to thermal flows within the LBM has been studied by researchers; the few past studies were limited to Dirichlet boundary conditions and/or using of feedback forcing and heating approaches. In the current paper, the direct forcing and heating approach was used which helps to eliminate the arbitrary constants used in the feedback approaches. The developed new numerical treatments for the Neumann type of boundary condition and for the calculation of the local Nusselt number eliminate the need to determine surface normal and temperature gradient in the normal direction for heat transfer calculation, which is particularly beneficial in cases with deforming or changing boundaries.